Critical to the widespread adoption of the television genre known as the sitcom, it was the secret sauce that made bad TV watchable.

Through some kind of tubular black magic (now accomplished through digital sampling) it recorded particularly infectious laughs from individuals and groups and stored them so the TV director could – cue the laugh, or sweeten the sound track by combining and playing laughs back at different volumes and intensities.

The clever use of this machine told viewers at home what they were watching was funny, even if the dialogue was inane and poorly performed. It was chumming the laugh waters for the masses.

Another use was to fill “dead” spots in the show (when the writing, or the delivery or the situation fell flat) – with noise… in this case an appreciative chuckle or just a smattering of laughs.

The sound of a riotous laughter also allowed viewers at home to feel as though they were watching with a group, even if they were alone… another connection that was enabled by these machines.

Laugh track machines aren’t quite so popular for TV these days.

But the concept of “sweetening” the mix is far from dead.

Online, our communications are devolving into short bursts of typed words. These printed messages are broadcast to single recipients or thousands of “friends” or viewsers without the benefit of human voice and its accompanying tone, volume, tempo, innuendo, facial expressions, eye contact or any of the other cues that give the listener a hint of where we are coming from. And certainly no one chooses to read anything longer than a few sentences anymore so it is tough to establish context.

My only advice in trying to use emoticons is to use them with good taste – if that is possible, and with a minimalist sensibility.

When you know you are listening to a laugh track, or someone winks at you one too many times, somehow it doesn’t work anymore.

And as for hashtags – that # you see added in front of random words – first on Twitter and now everywhere… they have moved beyond their sorting utility and are now a substitute for creativity. They usually mean nothing except – I couldn’t think of anything clever to put here…